Catherine Myers knows how hard it is to ensure every child gets every chance after a career spent turning around some of the toughest schools in Britain.

The Scots teacher, whose talent and passion for education helped children in the poorest boroughs in England, believes Scotland can learn lessons when it comes to helping the next generation of students.

She believes Scotland can learn valuable lessons from her experience and that every child should leave school with a visible achievement of what they’ve done.

Her principles meant that children whose reading age was two years below average have been able to achieve far more than was expected.

When she took over from the Sisters of Mercy to head the school in 1992, its national performance was dire. Only 18 per cent of girls attained five GCSEs at grade A to C, and the boys’ school had been forced to shut down.

It reopened in 2001 and now 99 per cent of the boys get five GCSEs at A to C and 90 per cent of girls achieve the same. The figures make Catherine proud.

She said: “My starting point was to value the whole person. When I started in education, there was a lot more focus on pastoral education. When Michael Gove came to power, he got rid of lots of vocational courses.

“But in London, as in lots of other places, the jobs aren’t there. There aren’t the apprenticeships. Companies don’t want to be taking on the role of educator. Vocational courses went from more than 1000 to a couple of hundred. There’s nothing there, really, for the lower-ability child.”

Despite the current outlook and challenges for the next generation, Catherine believes parents continue to have a pivotal role to play in ensuring children are offered the best start and in closing the education attainment gap.

She said: “All of my children and grandchildren were in pre-school, nurseries and play groups. I did that from when they were a year-and-a-half. It’s there that they meet other children, and where they listen to stories and learn.”

Just as her approach worked in school, it also worked at home – her three children are all doctors.

She said: “Attainment is partly linked to poverty. But it’s also about offering children things they are interested in. And it’s about having a teaching style that can impart knowledge.

“You will always have mixed ability in schools. If a child has low ability and is not getting the correct course, then you get discipline problems. For any child who can’t sit and pay attention, it creates low-level disruption.”

Her warning to governments on both sides of the border is to stop meddling.

She said: “I think the Government should let the professionals do what they need to do. What you have now is very unpopular among the profession.

“The current system, Progress 8, means getting rid of lots of vocational courses. It is decimating music and art courses. The Government want us to relate to industry and in London, music and arts are tremendously important.”

David Cameron has announced plans to make every school an academy. But Catherine warned that it could leave schools struggling to recruit staff.

David Cameron has announced plans to make every school an academy (Image: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

She said: “Schools outside local authority control will have to find their own staff. But how will they do that and who is going to give them extra-curricular advice?

“Schools aren’t getting better as academies. When I left, the school was doing really well. What about smaller schools and primary or special schools?”

Catherine – who always wanted to be a teacher – secured a physics degree followed by a teaching qualification and her first job was in the east end of Glasgow.

While the pupils she taught had a similar upbringing to her own, she realised there were families who did not know how to raise their children.

She said: “There were people who just didn’t care enough. That was one of the biggest eye-openers.”

Nowadays, she works as a chair of governors in a special school in Surrey. She doesn’t miss 16-hour days but she does miss the children.

She said: “I don’t miss getting up at six in the morning and coming home late. I do miss the children. But I love having grandchildren.”

It was introduced south of the border in 2003 by the then Labour government with the aim of giving young people a better education.

The London Challenge inspired the £100million Attainment Scotland Fund recently announced by the Scottish Government.

The First Minister said: “While I have no time for some of the ideological reforms taking place in English education, there are clear lessons for Scotland from the London challenge and the efforts made here to improve attainment.

“As other countries learn from our work on Curriculum for Excellence, so we should be open to ideas from other parts of the UK and elsewhere to help tackle the challenges we face.

“Blue Gate Fields has delivered spectacular results and demonstrates that, with the right support, children can achieve in education, whatever their background.”